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The Senate passed a defense bill amendment Thursday requiring the secretary of defense to conduct a study on how much support reservists and National Guardsmen receive while reintegrating into civilian life after deployments. Among other objectives, the study would evaluate the feasibility of allowing service members to stay on active duty for a limited time after deployments.

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A bill in Congress would impose harsher penalties on employers that discriminate against military veterans returning from active duty and would require a government study on how to educate businesses about the employment rights of members of the military. The bill also would bar employers from requiring service members to waive their right to return to their jobs after a deployment.

UN special rapporteur on human rights Sima Samar says government forces in Sudan continue to carry out land and air strikes against civilians in Darfur, even as Sudanese diplomats lobby African and Islamic nations to back an effort to stop the mandate for human-rights investigations from being renewed.

Although the LGBT movement would seem to be on the verge of major gains with President Barack Obama occupying the White House and Democratic majorities in Congress, there has been little movement on key issues such as overturning the Defense of Marriage Act and ending the military gay ban. What's missing, according to columnist Frank Rich, is leadership from Obama or a powerful member of Congress.

Alain Le Roy, UN undersecretary general for peacekeeping missions, says the UN is dangerously overstretched in terms of its deployments. The UN currently manages 18 peace missions that deploy 112,000 uniformed soldiers per year at a cost of $8 billion annually. France and the U.K. have launched a review of the UN's peacekeeping operations systems.

The federal hate-crimes bill is in limbo once again after House leaders pulled back from their plan to attach the measure to a defense authorization bill. That the plan is off, due to the reluctance of liberals to vote for the defense-spending measure and of conservatives to support the hate-crimes legislation, is yet another disappointment from the current leadership, according to this New York Times editorial. "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has to do more than just express her support for the bill; she must find a way to make it the law," the Times writes.